Public Transport

In 1745 the 'Flying Coach' to London completed its journey from Birmingham in two days 'if the road permitted'. By 1784 the time was down to fourteen hours due to turnpike improvement: then 52 coaches a week were going to the capital and 16 to Bristol. In the 1830's steam roadcars were competing so successfully that rival interests combined to restrict their speed and raise their tolls: but for this, steam would have triumphed on the roads, and much of the rail network might never have been built.

By 1833 horse omnibuses were plying between Birmingham and seven local towns, stopping en route whenever hailed. Services to what are now suburbs began the following year - first to Edgbaston Lane tollgate on Bristol Road, to the newly-rebuilt Plough & Harrow on Hagley road, and to the Beehive on Soho Road. As the turnpikes were abandoned during the next three decades, other individuals and companies joined in the growing business.

The Tramways Act of 1870 enabled three Companies to lay lines from the Birmingham borough boundary at Hockley/Aston Brook and Highgate to West Bromwich and Tipton, through Aston Manor, and to Moseley and Kings Heath. Birmingham Corporation used its powers to lay lines within the borough, which it then rented to companies on short leases, beginning in 1873 with the route from Monmouth Street (Colmore Row) to Hockley. The rails were laid in granite setts down the middle of the 'horse-road', which often needed widening and kerbing at the same time. In 1874 the independent Harborne Railway opened: in effect it was a single-line steam tramway with three stops between Rotton Park and a terminus near Harborne High Street, but it carried both passengers and freight. Long waits to join the L.N.W. line at Dudley Road made for slow journeys on 'the Harborne Flyer'. The Birmingham & South-West Suburban line of 1876 from Kings Norton to New Street through Selly Oak and Edgbaston had five stations in as many miles: leasing a strip of land alongside the moribund Worcester Canal, it required no major works until the tunnels east of Five Ways. In that same year the Bristol Road tramway opened, as a single line until 1879, as far as Bournbrook.

Early tramcars were horse-drawn. The last such were started on the Nechells route in 1884, and these changed directly from horses to electric traction in 1906, whereas steam locomotives with trailers were introduced on all other routes old and new from 1885. The next year Company cars were operating on 13 radial routes from termini about the town centre. In 1889 the Hockley route was re-opened as a cable tramway, cars being jerked along by an endless cable in a conduit between the rails, stopping when the driver released a clamp. Steamcars shunted the vehicles into and out of the depot at Whitmore Street. This system, possible only on a fairly straight run, lasted until 1911. After unsuccessful trials with battery-power on the Bournbrook route, from 1890 to 1901, overhead cables were provided for electric cars. By 1905 the Bristol Road, Aston, and Coventry Road route had been electrified.

When most of the City line leases expired in 1906, 200 Corporation cars took over all existing routes and started services on Stoney Lane and Bolton Road. A large power station in Summer Lane was supplemented by others, e.g. Upper Trinity Street, Lincoln Street, Evelyn Road, and Coventry Road at the Swan. The Bristol Road routes beyond Bournbrook to Cotteridge and Selly Oak were not taken over until 1911.

The Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Company ('Midland Red') used petrol 'buses which were so unreliable that only two years after its 1904 start they were replaced by horses! In 1912 improved vehicles began to grind and whine up the local hills, and the next year Corporation one-deckers began to run from Selly Oak to Rednal and Rubery. After World War One they were replaced by trams. In 1914 B.C.T. 'buses replaced Midland Reds on the Harborne, Queens Park, Moseley, and Ivy Bush to Handsworth Wood routes. From the Eighties old inns on tram routes, at termini and suburban stations, were rebuilt as terra-cotta palaces. Between the Wars the big breweries built huge roadhouses on strategic sites in a variety of historical styles to cater for commuters and tourists.

Warwick Road was last to be trammed because of the extensive bridge and road work it needed. By 1916 the lines had reached Flint Green, and they were extended to Westley Brook terminus in 1922. The last tramlines to be laid in the City, all in 1928, were on Stratford Road to the Shirley boundary, on Bordesley Green East-a new road and Cole Bridge to Stechford-and on Washwood Heath Road to Stechford Lane-the Fox & Goose. Like the Rednal and Rubery lines, these were on sleeper tracks on central reservations between dual carriageways. The circular routes had also been intended to be served by trams, hence the grass strips on Bromford Lane, Stoney Lane, Yardley, Fox Hollies Road and Lordswood Road. Increasing traffic and the slowness of trams on the long journeys to and from outer suburbs to Inner Ring factories caused the abandonment of economical trams in favour of expensive diesel 'buses.

Two half-circle 'bus routes of 1926 linking peripheral suburbs were joined in 1928 to create the Outer Circle. For nearly half a century strangers had no way of knowing whether a No. 11 was going clockwise or widdershins! The route involved many narrow winding lanes and awkward intersections with the score of radial highways: few of them have been improved. Trams would have been totally unsuitable. The Outer Circle, which ignores huge suburbs beyond its 25-mile oval, was joined in the same year by the Inner Circle, 11 miles round with a radius from the city centre of 1½-2 miles, and four years later by the City Circle of 6¾ miles with a 1 mile radius. A planned Ring Road from Quinton to Olton in readiness for which building lines on e.g. Cartland and Howard Roads, Brook and Robin Hood Lanes, and Olton Boulevard, were set back to provide for a parallel carriageway, has progressed not at all since 1939 and is now abandoned by our West Midland masters.

In 1933 what would probably have been the best form of public transport for the city was introduced on the Nechells and Coventry Road routes, the trolley 'bus. Next year the Harborne line closed for passengers, and many of the suburban stations on other lines went out of use soon afterwards. Rail commuting was at peak before World War One. 46 stations on ten lines served 'railway suburbs' like Erdington, Stechford, Acocks and Hall Greens, Moseley, Kings Heath, Cotteridge, Selly Oak, Harborne, Rotton Park, and Handsworth, all of which had good rail connections to New Street or Snow Hill before they had road services. But from the coming of clean, frequent electric trams on all main roads with stops every quarter-mile at greatest and linking services through populous districts, the less frequent and convenient trains' popularity and use declined. In two decades from 1937 all trams and trolley 'buses were replaced by diesel 'buses: a short length of track in Edmund Street is all that remains of 81 miles (which included Black Country routes) along which B.C.T. tramcars trundled in 1928. The Midland Red is part of the National Company, and Birmingham's 'bus fleet is merged since 1969 with others: the livery is similar, but the vehicles are usually so dirty that their colours are hard to make out!

See ROADS AND RAILS OF BIRMINGHAM 1900-1939 by R. Coxon.